Marilyn Stasio
The idiom is what you'd expect for the period (''she made love with the freshness of an impatient virgin and the ingenuity of a sex-scarred whore''), but the narrative is layered with detail, the action is handled with Block's distinctive clarity of style and the ending is a stunning tour de force.
— The New York Times
Library Journal
Small-time hustler Joe Marlin targets wealthy, gullible women, fleecing them of their money before moving on to the next victim. Forced to leave Philadelphia with little cash and the clothes on his back, he arrives in Atlantic City and steals someone's luggage. Along with clothes, the bags contain a large stash of heroin. Joe then meets Mona Brassard, a beautiful woman unhappily married to an import-export businessman. Joe soon discovers the stolen luggage and the drugs belong to Mona's husband. Mona and Joe hatch a plot to murder him, sell the heroin, and run away together, but then the crosses and double-crosses begin, leading to a very clever ending. This tale displays Block's craft as a master storyteller, which later matured into his Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr novels. Veteran reader Alan Sklar, who has performed on other Block audiobooks, is superb, presenting the work in an engaging manner. Highly recommended for all collections.-Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Lib., Parkersburg Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
DEC 05/JAN 06 - AudioFile
Joe Marlin’s life as a con man ends when he steals some luggage in which he finds a block of heroin and he falls in love with Mona, who is married, coincidentally, to the owner of the stolen suitcases. What starts as a tongue-in-cheek and cheeky narrative turns into a very dark story. Alan Sklar’s gravelly voice begins in the tone of a stereotypical semi-villain whom the listener might grow to like. However, as the story progresses, becoming more and more sinister, Sklar’s voice changes subtly. Unfortunately, he reads at too slow and deliberate a pace, unwarranted in a story that itself is slow and deliberate, with lots of thought and little action. S.S.R. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
